This began with a two-disc set of the Hilliards singing Palestrina’s Canticum Canticorum motets. I’m not a great Palestrina fan in general, but this recording is really exquisite, with clear limpid sound.
Then I moved on to an anniversary composer, Schumann, and a couple of LPs of his symphonies with Muti and the Philharmonia. Sadly, the Rhenish recording stuck. When a recording of Hummel’s violin sonatas (on the obscure Amon Ra label) also stuck, it was time to look into the matter and adjust the balance of the arm. After this the recording no longer stuck and neither did the Schumann, though the Debussy in the previous batch still did.
I followed this with a disc of Schumann’s 1st and 4th symphonies, which runs for well over an hour and must be one of the longer discs in the collection.
Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne (sung by Dame Kiri here) are a bit soupy for my taste and will probably be played only in the car; the recording was a 21st birthday present.
The final recording in the batch was Shostakovich’s suite from The Gadfly in an old Melodiya recording. This is a case where it is a shame to lose the cover, a quaintly pastel-tinted photograph of the composer sat at a desk with a spare pair of glasses in front of him.